The longest bull run in a century of art-market history ended on a dramatic note with a sale of 56 works by Damien Hirst, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, at Sotheby's in London on September 15th 2008. All but two pieces sold, fetching more than ￡70m, a record for a sale by a single artist. It was a last victory. As the auctioneer called out bids, in New York one of the oldest banks on Wall Street, Lehman Brothers, field for bankruptcy.
2008年9月15日，在伦敦的苏富比拍卖行，随着Damien Hirst的56件作品在一场名为“Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” 的拍卖会上被售出，持续了一个世纪的艺术品市场史上最长牛市迎来了戏剧性的结束。参加拍卖的作品除两件外其余均售出，成交额超过七千万英镑，创下了个人艺术家的拍卖成交记录。这是一场最后的胜利。随着拍卖师喊出竞价，纽约华尔街上最古老的银行——雷曼兄弟也同时申请了破产。
The world art market had already been losing momentum for a while after rising bewilderingly since 2003. At its peak in 2007 it was worth some $65 billion, reckons Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics, a research firm -- double the figure five years earlier. Since then it may have come down to $50 billion. But the market generates interest far beyond its size because it brings together great wealth, enormous egos, greed, passion and controversy in a way matched by few other industries.
世界艺术品市场自经历了2003年的惊人增长之后，在一段时间以来已经失去了其活力。据Arts Economics研究公司的创始人Clare McAndrew估计，世界艺术品市场的市值在2007年达到约650亿美元的峰值，是5年之前的两倍。尽管随后该市值可能已经降低至500亿美元。然而艺术品市场所产生利益仍然远远超过其规模，因为它将大量财富，还有强烈的自我认同、贪婪、激情和争议，用一种其它行业无法和它相提并论的方式结合在一起。
In the weeks and months that followed Mr. Hirst's sale, spending of any sort became deeply unfashionable. In the art world that meant collectors stayed away from galleries and salerooms. Sales of contemporary art fell by two-thirds, and in the most overheated sector, they were down by nearly 90% in the year to November 2008. Within weeks the world's two biggest auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's, had to pay out nearly $200m in guarantees to clients who had placed works for sale with them.
在Hirst的作品被拍卖之后的一段时间内，艺术品市场上任何方面的支出都变得极不流行。这说明在艺术品的世界里，收藏家们已经远离了美术馆和销售场所。截至2008年11月，现代艺术品的拍卖额已经下降了三分之二，而在一些最热门的分类上，下降比例甚至接近90%。世界上最大的两家拍卖所——苏富比和佳士得，在数周的时间内不得不向那些将艺术品交给它们拍卖的顾客支付将近两亿美元的担保。
The current downturn in the art market is the worst since the Japanese stopped buying Impressionists at the end of 1989. This time experts reckon that prices are about 40% down on their peak on average, though some have been far more fluctuant. But Edward Dolman, Christie's chief executive, says: "I'm pretty confident we're at the bottom."
艺术品市场目前低迷的状态是自1989年底日本不再购买印象派作品以来最为严峻的。据专家估计，尽管有些品类的波动较大，但此次的平均价格相比其峰值仍然降低了约40%。然而佳士得的首席执行官Edward Dolman却表示，“我十分确信我们已经在谷底了。”
What makes this slump different from the last, he says, is that there are still buyers in the market. Almost everyone who was interviewed for this special report said that the biggest problem at the moment is not a lack of demand but a lack of good work to sell. The three Ds -- death, debt and divorce -- still deliver works of art to the market. But anyone who does not have to sell s keeping away, waiting for confidence to return.
Edward Dolman表示正是因为目前仍然有买家在艺术品市场活动，才使得这次的市场衰退和上一次的不同。而几乎所有被这篇特别报道采访的人都曾提到，目前最大的问题不是缺乏购买需求而是缺乏值得出售的优秀作品。在3个D——即死亡、债务和离婚的驱使下，仍然会有艺术品被交付给市场。但是那些没有出售必要的人，目前则在和市场保持距离并等待信心恢复。
